This blog contains materials about the way people celebrate Xmas in Europe.

Plugusorul, Capra and Ursul

On New Year’s Eve, after about five o’clock in the afternoon, children, teenagers and even adults go from house to house to announce the beginning of the New Year. They perform special songs, most of them funny and in certain regions the children are dressed in colourful clothes and wear masks. In Romanian, this custom is called Plugusorul (which literally means The Little Plough). The ploughmen are teenagers and children carrying whips, bells and pipes in their handsand wishing a fruitful year to the ones who open their houses for them. This custom is to be seen especially in villages, where sometimes, according to the old custom, the young people carry a decorated plough with them, as a symbol of the field fruitfulness in the New Year. Here is a Plugusorul performance.

Another very special character is the goat—Capra. It is not a real goat, but a wooden goat-like object meant to make a lot of noise. The goat can also be a child or a young adult dressed up in a goat costume. Here are our pupils from Humoreni School performing Capra.

Here’s a photo of a wooden Capra taken by the pupils of Comanesti School.

The goat can also be a child or a young adult dressed up in a goat costume.

In our region, children also dress up in bear costumes and the custom is called Ursul. Here is Stefan from Comanesti School dressed up as a bear.

It is great that your pupils are keeping these customs alive. Unfortunately we cannot see the videos here in school as You Tube is blocked by our national school’s filtering system. I watched them at home and I thought they were wonderful.
Tom